This section is from the book "Feeling Better? Amusements and Occupations for Convalescents", by Cornelia R. Trowbridge. Also available from Amazon: Feeling Better.
1. In a room with eight corners sat eight cats, one in each corner. Seven cats sat before each cat and a cat sat on each cat's tail. How many cats were there in the room?
a. Arrange the given number of matches or toothpicks to make the following: a Ten to make a man.
b. Ten to make a monkey.
c. Eleven to make one.
d. Eleven to make seven dozen.
e. Ten to make only two.
3. This very old riddle, which has appeared in many forms, is said to have originated with Charlemagne.
It can be worked out with the kings and queens of three suits of cards.
Three jealous kings accompanied by their queens came to a river. The only boat to take them across it held but two. Each king refused to leave his queen alone in the company of another king. How did their majesties and their consorts get across?
4 Divide a strip of paper 5x1 inches by four cuts so that the pieces can be rearranged in a perfect square.
5 Cut a piece of paper 2x6 inches into two pieces which will make a rectangle 4x3 inches.
6. Divide a Greek cross by two straight cuts so that the pieces will form a square.
7. Remove five coins from eleven, add four and have nine.
8. Remove three of the eleven matches making up these five triangles and leave only two triangles.
9 In a row of five houses live Mr. and Mrs. Green, Brown, Smith, Jones and Cook, but not in that order. There are five tradesmen who call at these houses, namely, grocer, coalman, baker, butcher and milkman, whose names are Green, Brown, Smith, Jones and Cook, but not respectively.
The butcher's married sister lives at No. 1. Mr. Jones lives next door but one to the coalman's namesake. The milkman's namesake has no relatives. The butcher's namesake lives at No. 2. Mr. Jones goes to work with the butcher's brother-in-law. Mr. Brown helps the coalman's namesake in the garden. Mr. Smith lives next door but one to the milkman's namesake. Mrs. Green and Mrs. Jones are sisters. The baker's namesake has only one male connection by marriage, who lives at No. 3. Mr. Cook lives next door to the coalman's namesake. What is the name of each tradesman?
10 Mr. Jones one day met a boyhood friend whom he had not seen or heard of for many years. His friend said, "Since we met last I have married. Here comes my daughter now."
Mr. Jones greeted the child and said, "What is your name?"
"I am named after my mother."
"So you are named Julia, too," said Mr. Smith.
How did he know the child was named Julia?
Answers on page 241.
1 Punctuate and capitalize to form three sentences: That that is is that that is not is not is not that it.
2 Make sense out of these words by punctuating and capitalizing: a Smith where Jones had had had had had had had had had had had the approval of the examiners Smith would have passed.
b Time flies you cannot they fly so fast.
3 Supply m five times and complete this sentence: adeniicandock
4 Translate this Latin:
Amans tam erat hi desint hero ad digito ut mando.
5 Read this sentence correctly: stand took to taking you throw my
Scattered over the face of the waters are the ten large islands the outlines of which are given on the two following pages. They are drawn north and south by the compass but not to a uniform scale.
Their relative sizes can be estimated from this table of their areas in square miles.
1 121,000 sq. mi.
2 32,000 sq. mi.
3 43,000 sq. mi.
4 10,000 sq. mi.
5 40,000 sq. mi.
6 41,000 sq. mi.
7 99,000 sq. mi.
8 228,000 sq. mi.
9 161,000 sq. mi. 10 44,000 sq. mi.
Alphabetically arranged, here are the twelve largest cities of the world. Re-arrange them in the order of their size.
Buenos Aires Leningrad New York Shanghai Berli London Paris Tokio
Chicago Moscow Philadelphia Vienna
These are cities having a population of over 100,000, all located in the United States. After each one write the name of the state in which it is situated.
Birmingham.
Bridgeport .
Camden
Canton
Evansville
Fall River .
Flint
Gary
Peoria
Reading
Somerville
South Bend
Tampa
Tulsa
Answers on page 243.
Here are the capitals. Can you name the countries?
Addis Ababa_ Asuncion
Angora _ Bangkok _
Belgrade
Bucharest
Caracas
Cayenne
Georgetown
Helsingfors
Jehol
Kabul
Managua
Montevideo
Prague
Quito
Santiago
Sofia
Tegucigalpa Teheran
Here are the first names of the thirty-one men who have been our presidents. How many last names can you supply?
Abraham
Andrew
Andrew
Benjamin
Calvin
Chester
Franklin
Franklin
George
Grover
Herbert
James
James
James
James
James
John
John
John
Martin
Millard
Rutherford
Theodore
Thomas
Ulysses
Warren
William
William
William
Wood row
Zachary
These lists name one male and one female character from each of the ten plays by Shakspere given below. Write after each title the two names from the dramatis personae of that play.
Men: Polonius, Falstaff, Benedict, Ariel, Launcelot, Bottom, Cassius, Jacques, Malvolio, Petru-chio.
Women: Titania, Jessica, Portia, Bianca, Mistress Ford, Olivia, Ophelia, Hero, Rosalind, Miranda.
plays | men | women |
The Merry Wives of Windsor | ||
A Midsummer Night's Dream | ||
The Merchant of Venice | ||
Hamlet | ||
As You Like It | ||
The Taming of the Shrew | ||
The Tempest | ||
Twelfth Night | ||
Much Ado About Nothing | ||
Julius Caesar |
After each of these quotations from Shakspere write the title of the play in which it occurs and the name of the person who says it.
1 All the world's a stage.
2 I'll put a girdle round about the earth in forty minutes.
3 A Daniel come to judgement.
4 We are such stuff As dreams are made on.
5 Comparisons are odorous.
6 A horse! a horse! My kingdom for a horse!
7 She sat like Patience on a monument.
8 He jests at scars that never felt a wound.
9 That was the most unkindest cut of all. 10. Out, damned spot.
Place counters-use small buttons or snap fasteners or bits of paper-on six dots of this diagram in such a way that no two counters are connected by a straight line.
The Crossword Puzzle Books, Prosper Buranelli, Margaret Pether-bridge and F. Gregory Hartswick. Simon and Schuster, New York.
This popular series reached Number 36 in 1935 and is still going strong.
Judge's Crossword Series. John Day Company, New York. Sixth Volume, 1935.
Editor's requirement from contributors is that "definitions must be ambidextrous and witty."
Are You a Genius? R. A. Streeter and R. G. Hoehn. Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York. 1932. "Brain-twisting questions" to test the alert mind. Century of Charades, William Bellamy. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston. 1894. Still unsurpassed in its field. The Mystery Puzzle Book, Lassiter Wren and Randle McKay. Thomas Y. Crowell, New York. 1933. Thirty crimes and mysteries, with clues by which to solve them. Foreword by S. S. Van Dine.
Who's This? Frank P. Foster II. D. Appleton-Century Company, New York. 1933. Short biographical sketches of well-known persons who are to be identified.
Name It, John Gray and "Lloyd." Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York. 1933. Pictures of hundreds of more or less familiar objects to be labeled.
All for Fun, Carolyn Wells. The John Day Company, New York. 1933-
A diverting book of old and new puzzles.
Double Crostics, Elizabeth S. Kingsley. Simon and Schuster, New York. 1934.
A series of "literary puzzles" inaugurated in 1934. It's About Time, Gerald Lynton Kaufman. Heyday House, Garden City, New York. 1935. Time as a Pastime instead of a Taskmaster.
 
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